Upcoming New Pricing

Hi Max. API call thresholds have changed significantly with the new pricing. For example Pro was 5 million API's per month and now is only 50,000. Can you clarify why this change and confirm whether grandfathering also covers existing plan metrics as well as pricing.

I am also very concerned about the new limit for the API calls. I am in one of the grandfathered plans and certainly I won't be able to afford to keep one of my apps alive with the new pricing structure. At the current $0.0020/API call for overage, that's $2000 for 1M calls, which today are included.

One of my apps stores a large db that requires regular updates which will need about $2000 per update. As you know most apps make little money and this is not making any money yet, so I am afraid I will have to just stop developing this app through Appery distribute it via a different database provider after spending months on it. Very frustrating that the price goes up and the API limit drops so dramatically.

I would also like to add the the Amazon prices for API calls are also extremely low, making this new pricing structure very uncompetitive. Please tell me if I am reading this the wrong way.
This is from Amazon https://aws.amazon.com/api-gateway/pr...

We understand the concerns and appreciate the feedback. All existing plans are grandfathered and will not be affected by the pricing change. If your app continues to grow but you are still not up to the Enterprise plan, we will work with you on a custom plan that works for you.

We look at APIs a bit differently than other services out there. There is a lot of value-add behind an API call to our platform. For example, you get access to API Express service flow. It allows you to integrate with external systems and build advance service flows. Server Code integrates nicely with the database and Push Notification. You can quickly query the database, then send a Push Notification based on query result. There is a lot of integration that you get out-of-the-box. That's a big value-add. Amazon API calls are cheap, it would be impossible for us to compete with them on price. In fact, I don't think anyone can do that today.

Hi Max, I agree that API calls may reflect app usage and thus value. However, I have recently had a large number of API calls (nearly 500,000) to load a large number of rows into the database. The app is still in development and has no usage. Is there any way that such usages can be excluded from the count? For example Amazon only charges for data out, not data in.

With the current pricing I have no choice to shut down this app and look for alternatives because the charges are just unreasonably high. I have recently recommended Appery to a friend who was asking for advice on platforms for app development, but with these changes I lost trust in Appery as a platform that I can rely on in the long term (more price surges of this kind in 6 months) and will definitively look into other options, especially for database storage.

>>The app is still in development and has no usage. Is there any way that such >>usages can be excluded from the count?
We don't have this feature yet, but it's something we would like to make available where you can have "development" and "production" environments.

In my case I am using a Java program that runs on my machine to send curl POST/PUT requests to the database - this is driving most of the usage to upload/update this database. I would really appreciate if such usage was excluded towards the limit (or maintained at the current limit)

Max - can you confirm how API calls will be counted. The announcement stated: "We have also simplified and consolidated the platform API calls. There is now a single count for all platform API calls which includes: Database, Server Code, Push Notifications and API Express". With your example above of a server call that queries a db and sends a PUSH notification - is that counted as 1 API call?

But to reduce from 5 Million api calls to 50k api calls? That's a reduction of 100 times.

If you value the API Express so much, you might as well treat that as a special API call and remain the 5 million quotas for the rest (Database, server code)?
Because that feature has been available since the last few price increases.

I really don't get the justification....

50k Api calls, come on.......Even during development stage we would have used up half of it.

i just joined appery this month on a subscription and the prices have increased. Before making any money via the app, the prices are going up. I am sure there are other developers like me who are disappointed.

the starter plan is "90 $" which is way too much. What if you only have 1 app and dont use that much. I think there should be fair plans for everyone .

This upcoming change on API call definitely a deal breaker!! The API calls drops at least 100 times comparing plans side by side and your platform just increased the price on Nov. Really? 200K vs 5 millions calls for a Pro Plan?

We budgeted on your existing pricing and project user grow and your price change on a reasonable rate before we started on development. We then spent months in development after making the decision and now we are forced to change everything or even abandon this platform cause we know we can't afford to scale when user grow with this pricing structure. It kills us before we can grow and I believe it's the same for many startup or small biz trying to use Appery.

At the beginning, we look at Appery as a great platform to help quickly bring product to the market at competitive pricing and grow with the users. Appery makes money when the app makes money but apparently this is not the case.

Please ask your sales and developer on what the pathetic API calls quotas can be done while everything is counted (Database, Server Code, Push Notifications and API Express)? To support 100~200 active users on a monthly basic on pro plan and 300~500 users on a team plan? How can we grow before we can profit? At the end, if Appery users are not profitable how can Appery survive?

Absolutely agree especially considered that actual cost to Appery per API call is a tiny tiny fraction of what is planned to be charged. If the goal is to charge based on app value, API calls are not a good metric. Indeed my only profitable app is an app that works 100% offline and needs zero storage and zero API calls on the Appery database. I do like Appery I have no problem with the annual price increase, indeed I am happy to support Appery. But the new limits make no sense.

Basically, Appery, what you're telling us is to hand you a couple thousand bucks now and stop complaining.

But what you don't get is the absurd quotas and price increase. And the justification for this drastic reduction is just too weak (Because of API Express).

You even lower the App quotas (From 7 to 3). What's the justification for that now?
I remembered when I first subscribed to the standard plan, it was USD30. Now, the starter plan is USD90.

I got 1 million api calls for USD30, now I get 50k? I don't even use API Express in my application.

Although you give us grandfathered plans, but it will stop us from expanding in the future. Just look at the number of complaints here.

Right now, I'm just frustrated....and worried. I will now think twice before investing months learning/developing on a platform which will increase it's pricess and reduce quotas every few months or so.

If you are not able to charge your credit card, there is a 3 day grace period. We also send out 3 emails telling you that we couldn't charge your card. We understand life happens, if you contact us a day or two after the grace period, we can move you back to your original plan.

We don't save your credit card information. Your billing information is securely stored with http://www.authorize.net/. Today you can have only one credit card. If for some reason a charge fails, you get 3-day grace period to update your billing information.

Max, I implemented a workaround to the API limit by setting up an external managed mongo database. It's free now, then $15/month, but I like the peace of mind and not thinking that i might be charged $2000 one day - e.g. sudden surge in usage for a partially free app for example. So the fair price is really what it's in the best interest of Appery - generating profits.

And I personally would be concerned if Appery disappeared in one year because it's losing money as I would lose such a useful platform.

No one is going to set up an app and pay the overage charges for API calls that you have just set because they are ridiculously high compared to what any other company charges and to what they cost to maintain. This is like doing the Martin Shkrieli who raised the price of a 1$ off-patent pill to $2000. It just backfired.

So users either implement an external system or change their app logic or don't even consider signing up if they are new to the platform. There's nothing to gain for Appery doing this.

I agree, Im already talking to a designer and taking the grand we would spend this month to buy the year rate and make plans to move off the platform since it appears there is no budging to keep us as customers and the priority "support" of sending a vague link to the new "documentation" - and Im using that word loosely here since its very thin and riddled w typos.
For example
I just asked how to best access the Url for a sound file I added to the Database.. the answer is completely not helpful just a link to the documentation which does not explain what I asked. so another day goes by and I have to send another email. . so perhaps we spend our money to move off the platform as quick as we can knowing that our costs will not escalate and Ill just wireframe instead of appery. Bummer Appery I dont see how this will help you grow.

In my opinion, if you want to increase the prices, you shouldn't change the quotas.

That table I provided was wrong, it's supposed to be 10million API calls vs 50k API calls (New plan). So, don't you see the problem here?

In my opinion, you could remain the 5 million API quota (universal), since this effectively reduce the API calls by 50% (10 million to 5 million).

Also, as a return, you could increase the DB storage and number of apps.
Why do you need to reduce DB storage and number of apps? FYI, we can't do much with only 5GB. You should increase the DB storage if you are going to charge USD90/month for the starter plan.

I don't get why you are punishing us and forcing us to find alternatives.
It just seems to me that you are looking towards short term gains. I want to remain with Appery and grow with it. But the new and future prices will be totally unfeasible for us to remain here.

I agree with the above posts. You need to make the API call limit higher.
And also I wouldn't want the number of apps to drop to 3 from 7.

You should grandfather whatever we have now and apply changes to your new sign-ups, in my opinion.

And my other gripe is that the new documentation could be vastly improved. I would have no problem paying more *if* I saw more features added that help with the development (Max - please review my long list I sent you months ago) and the documentation improved, especially with more examples/samples, but like the other posts here, API Express is of no use to me right now and I'm on the verge of deploying a live system and 50k calls is very likely to get exceeded.

In addition, I'm seeing a lot of support answers of this forum referring the user to the Angular documentation or jQuery site. Mostly that;s in response to "How do I..." type of questions. If you exampled your components as well as you have the backend services and as well as Angular do then we would be able to find the info we need quicker and your support load would reduce as well. Win-win for all.

What would seem fair would be if you are staying inside the Appery bubble,, ie just making calls to the Appery database, those should be free /and or current limits and if necessary current limits should be retained when you call an outside API This is still going to be an issue for us since our users are calling YouTube sites at least twice a day. Push notifications should be done separately and the current amount sustained.

Others have mentioned there was a pretty significant price increase just a few months ago. Perhaps these new prices will keep many from even trying your platform and that will not stimulate growth for the company. To expect your loyal customers to foot the bill for the update which gives less and documentation that leaves much to be desired is probably not in anyone's best interest. Thank for letting us share our opinions.

I think 30 day is good and standard trial period but the price will definitely put off a lot of people. Most developers using Apperyio are mostly self-starters. I see no harm in having a "friendly" entry price point, chances are none of those Apps are commercial or ever make money in the real world, after they are ready to take the plunge in deeper waters, most people have no issues moving to other plans. Certainly that was my case and I believe many others.

i think because of so much concerns regarding the new plans, it would be better if you can give one more month for the existing plans.

It would be better for both , appery team and the developers to think about the plans. This notice was too short considering its my first app, and i still havent used full potential of the appery architecture.

A fair proposal I think. You have sent out repeated emails and tweets about the latest update over the last few weeks but only given a few days notice to renew and lock in. My renewal is due anyway so in that respect I have no choice.

With regards to a starter plan, you had it almost right when I looked at it 18 months ago. The only problem I discovered was that the demo Pizza App had too many pages than allowed!

My suggestions for limits/sizes is as follows:
For newbies - have a 30 day trial, support via the forum only, no download/build/publish buy allow anyone to run the app for testing purposes (ie a developer's customer)

For paid subscriptions - have the API limits and maybe the database/app size quite high (like now) as building and testing the app will require a lot of load/save/test and potentially emptying the database and importing existing data. Then once it runs as a published app (HTML) or a built app for a device
then maybe reduce things.

However, if I have a 7 app limit on my Pro plan then I have to spread the limits across all apps and all users. One app I'm looking at would probably go on the Apple AppStore for free with minimal in-app purchase cost but will need to make considerable API/API Express calls so it could potentially cost more to run than income generated and there is a limit to how much you can charge.

One alternative would be for you to clearly and precisely document how we can download the entire app and either download the DB or export the database structure so it can be hosted on a platform of our choice. Then we can choose the most cost effective host or even host on our own servers if we have that capability.

Let's get back on topic here.
Bottom line. $90 a month for the lowest plan is way too much. $45 is about all I'd be willing to pay. And that would have to include the old quota structure.
And please don't keep talking about the whole "grandfather" thing. That doesn't make me feel any better. This creates a "gotta" type relationship where I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't.
For example, I need to hire a developer to help me with my app. After aug 31 if I add and/or remove that developer from my account then BOOM. New pricing plan.
So now what do I do. Struggle to finish my app myself(=lots of time) or get the help I need and end up getting bumped to the new pricing.
No thank you.
Please fix this fast or I'm jumping ship.

I am assuming you are bringing our voice back to the Appery upper management team. Please quickly discuss with John, Dmitry, and Ken to come up with your official response to the existing users.

Again, this new price plan greatly impacted customer's bottom line in a short coming and gives no time for us to make changes. This is truly unfair. Your grandfather plan is NOT a remedy to most of us. You might be able to force some to lock in a higher plan temporary but you also putting a stop to new subscribers. We are so sure about this because like many of the others, we would NOT even consider Appery if we knew plan is like this at the beginning. Even for those temporary forced to lock in a higher plan, I am sure they lost the confident on Appery from this change and all thinking about the work around, plan B, or jump the ship. Who knows what will come next month?? I don't want to stay in a platform that has no future because of outrage changes like this.

My personal experience but I believe most of us went through similar process before we get hooked.

* We trail run on your platform
* We evaluated the functionality and thought it fits our needs.
* We studied your existing pricing for budgeting and fair estimate your projection on pricing changes base in the past.
* Consider and compared all the plans and their quota and limit
* Thought about how we will ramp up and upgrade to different plan when we grow.
* Then we decided to spend months to do development and dump the other platforms out there

It takes a lot from us to be hooked and make the decision to pick the right service and do development. All those efforts are going to be ruined.

I personally don't want Appery to fail cause I spent all the time, efforts, & money to learn your platforms and it's has all the front end and backend together for rapid development. We love the platform and want to help you to continually gain marketshare! The more ppl knows about Appery, the more talents we might be able to recruit one day but now I am very much afraid that you will shut down due to this absurd change on direction.

Most of us don't mind paying some extra if you are adding new common features that benefits customer and not reducing your existing limits and coverage. Actually, a fair way should be making your new features optional to users like some others suggested. I am sure you didn't get much complaints and feedback son your November price change last year [in fact you got Zero reply for the announcement back then], however, this time the changes on price and drastically reduce on quota just so unfair. I even consider this is like a bait and switch game but after looking at some of the response, looks like you are open to feedback so I didn't totally lost faith.

Their are many suggestion for how Appery should re-consider the new price and quotas on APIs, Push, Storage, App number, etc, but I will said that you need to at least keep what you have for whatever the new fair pricing will be. Thanks for listening to our opinions.

BTW, a 30 days trails is better. The best way is to have an app that we can build and test out but not publish/build binary until we ready for production.

same here, we hv become captive clients, and Appery is taking advantage of it. why not ... but it's definitely short term pricing strategy. grandfathering is a time-bomb. if not keeping existing pricing plans which everyone is okay with (except appery maybe ... but in that case maybe better to work on sales volume to increase revenues instead of price increase), once grandfathering over in a year time, the remaining folks like me will leave and Appery sink. so far, i invested 2 yrs of my spare time in the Appery builder ... what a return ! my personal view; developing app is new to me. without appery I wld hardly got started. that has been the perfect tool for me who knew about old time coding but nothing about JS, JQ, REST, ajax, server code, sendgrid, mobile API services, ... my true job is managing a company. I play with the captive-client string ... business-is-business. however, I would never play that string that far as you guys at appery are doing. the string (meaning the clients) will break soon, for sure ... and the nice appery tune will stop ... what a pity.

Agree with this. We planed to launch some bigger projects on appery but this changes makes me think of the future of appery. Such a behaviour demonstrates how dangerous it is to rely on such a service. I appery goes down, we all do. I start now looking for other alternatives.

He is saying users who get impacted and brought up concerns here are just tiny portion of your customers. I am definitely shocked!

He is also saying the Appery API calls are very efficient and sounds like drastically lowering the quota is OK. Who is Appery going to fool???

And requesting the "FEW" customers have higher level of consumption to talk to you under the table when we need that?? This is our BIGGEST concern on
Appery. You are a company that is NOT trustworthy due to this kind of destructive pricing change and I have ZERO confident to workout an plan for our biz model one day. We have NO chance with Appery but fail under this circumstance.

Been a pro user since June 23, 2012.
I understand the increased pricing. I still believe Appery is good value for the money.
I'm only interested in jquery so there are many new Appery features I don't use.
In addition I don't use Apperys API's as we use our own server.
That said, a sudden price increase and substantial API quota changes may send a negative message to existing members.
I hope Appery continues to do well in the future.

Although this question of mine has been directly or indirectly asked and answered, I would like to ensure that once more:

We are currently using the PRO subscription with 1 additional developer seat, paid on a monthly basis, so we would be grandfathered in perpetuity even though we would continue to pay on a monthly basis, with the api calls prior to this new pricing scheme? And only would be part of the new pricing scheme if we decided to change our subscription? So as long as we keep our current subscription, regardless of monthly subscription, we would continue to be grandfathered by the old/current pricing structure? Please respond soonest. Thanks.

Max, nice to writing to you. just one clarification about this grandfathering, for a Pro plan which is paid annually, in a year time that plan will have to be renewed for another year. are you saying the pricing conditions will be today's pricing including the 2 x 5m calls, ... (before implementation of the new plan from Sep/1/2016) ? or the new pricing will be effective with 50K calls only ?

Max, thk you for your prompt reply. Clearer to me now. One more question, in today's pricing, I cannot find the cost for extra call (beyond 5m in Pro, and 10m in Team). Would you be kind enough to tell me how much or where I can get them ?

Our major market is India and 90% of the revenue comes from there. And 1 USD = 67 INR approximately! And on top of that the cut-down in API calls to such a low number is abhorable. We don't use API express and basically if you are talking about APIs, it can easily hit the measly 50k as we use push-notifications for alerts. Just one GPS Tracking Device itself can send over 50 geo fence notifications in a day. Can we decide to have some features disabled and in-turn have higher number of APIs? Haha these days instead of discussing App development we are spending time deciding on the App Development Platform!

I initially signed up for an Appery account 15 months ago. I would never have signed on with the new proposed pricing.

If my user base keeps growing, I will likely be priced out of using Appery altogether. This is sad because I never would have be able to create my apps without the previous pricing and great support from Appery.

Apparently Appery now has too many users and is now bent on driving customers away. If that is the intent, you're doing a great job! Maximize profit and screw everyone!

Time to find a new solution from another platform that actually appreciates their clients.

John mentioned "platform is very efficient in the use of API calls, etc." but no matter how efficient a platform is I will have to send out individual notifications to different devices unless I am doing some marketing alerts or notifications - which I don't. And I also guess many of the others don't. And then it's super easy to consume the measly 50k. I used to think 50k was a big number "before I learnt to program"

I was on my way to designing a free food ordering App sometime later. Just a few push notifications to couple of hundred devices and there goes my API quota for the month!

I guess people generally complain only if there is a sound reason to :)

I cannot agree more with the rest of the Appery community. Is this even allowed legally? I'm literally losing sleep over this. Guys, in good faith, it would be great to collaborate to work out a better solution for the wider community. The API quota thing is absolutely outrageous and really I've used a lot of services and products, and never have I come across changes so drastic!

Max can you please clarify so that everyone doesnt have to trawl back through every post:

If we have a plan now, say "Pro", then so long as the subscription continues and is "grandfathered" (BTW I hate that term) then all of the limits we have now stay they same INCLUDING THE API CALL LIMITS?

(Unless you change plan or add seats? - I think you should extra seats WITHOUT affecting the plan - the number is limited anyway!)

I just read something in the blog entry comments attached to your "CEO" comments blog. Based on your reply above I took "Everything you get today -- you will keep" to mean so long as I renew it will stay the same but my renewal is not until November so I didnt do anything further. Are you actually saying it only stays the same if I renewed by August 30th? If that's so then I really need to renew now and backdate it as it wasn't clear. Please advise.

The goal is not to charge overages. If your app is making more API calls that available in your plan, you should consider upgrading your plan. If you are on a Team plan already, please contact us and we will work with you on an Enterprise plan with more API calls.

For $90 all you get now is 50k calls... That's hardly enough to test an app, let alone launch it. And if I need more API calls then my choices are either $200 a month for 200k calls or a RIDICULOUS $2,000 a month for 1 million calls...

No one can use your service as a startup anymore. You used to be able to get 250k calls for only $30 a month and 1 million calls for only $45 a month! Now if I want to match the specs of the old basic package I have to spend $200 a month and $100 in overage charges.... And if I want a million calls again, I would need to spend $2,000 a month...

Tell me how the goal is not to make money on forcing people to pay $.002 per call because the plans inherently have so few calls that no one could possibly reasonably use your service anymore without breaking their monthly programming budgets.

Tit for tat, your service increased in cost by 4344.44%! How can you justify that? Did it really get that much better? Looks the same to me, just with a lot less calls and a lot more overhead from overages on API calls.

That's why Nguyen got hit so hard.

You guys have basically taken an amazing piece of software that opened the door for amateur and startup programmers to create valuable and professional looking applications and spread them across all platforms, and reduced it to a service only for professional and established companies (because that's really the only people that can afford your service anymore).

You had something brilliant on your hands and you got greedy. The marketplace will correct this over time.

FAO Max Katz; Hi, I won't complain again of the new pricing. You made some choices in pricing strategy. you guys must have done your Math.

I m writing regarding the email I received as newsletter. Good, it s mentioning about upgrade activities ...
I discovered in it that serverCode was reworked recently.
No wonder why I have bugs coming up in my serverCode.
I have to repositionned all my functions in order to prevent from not being read when the all script is executed. see screenShot.

I m not complaining but just would like to ask you to inform us (clients) ahead of what will be upgraded and what shall we put our attention on after such upgrade.
it would avoid the clients (I mean my clients) to tell me that the app doesn't work anymore. At least we would anticipate any side effect after upgrades.

that would make Appery's quality of service matching with new pricing strategy :)

thanks in advance,
Eric

PS: don't worry I am still very much amazed by how Appery works fine for me. more I dig into it more I find it convenient, in particular for web app. just that you guys could make it more like a team work.

We are sorry about this. Our previous JavaScript engine supported this function setup but it was actually a bug in the implementation. We didn't know about it and thus were not able to notify the users. Our mistake and we are sorry about it.

Hi there Karl, thks for taking time to respond. don't be sorry, I myself work and know that it's unavoidable to face that kind of bugs. Just, again, keep us aware of what will be reworked on your side.
Concretely, the announcement ahead of console shutting for update is a good place to include what will be touched. as soon as console is accessible again, we can test the updated areas.
As for your test above, I m not sure to know how perform it :)

I just came across appery.io and was very impressed with all the features it provides. However, the pricing is so ridiculous for a small starter companies and dosen't make sense at all specially with the limitation of 3 apps per subscription. It seems such tool is not made for the small companies.

I just recently signed up and couldn't agree more. After beginning my app development and running tests, I see I can easily surpass the API Call limit with just a few thousand apps running -- all for a free app that won't make any money.